Fire units to extinguish partnership

A long-running dispute over how much fire protection is enough — and who should pay for it — is forcing a split between two fire departments serving a large chunk of the northwest suburbs.

The breakup reflects basic differences between Barrington and the next-door Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District, which has no firefighters of its own but pays for the services of the village Fire Department.

Barrington has relatively dense housing and a network of fire hydrants, while the surrounding countryside includes rolling pastures, sprawling estates and vast areas with no hydrants.

The controversy is raising concerns among residents about how the split at the end of the year will affect their property taxes and their safety.

"I'm scared to death," village resident Larry Lincoln said. "Why would you want to mess with this?"

The pending split has become as divisive as a messy divorce. But officials on both sides have reassured residents that they will maintain safety while protecting their pocketbooks.

"We want our people to be safe and we don't want to waste their money," Village President Karen Darch said.

Caught in the middle are the firefighters, worried about their jobs and their pensions. Village officials say substantial layoffs are inevitable because of reduced responsibilities within Barrington.

"The cost to provide a similar level of service for two departments will be astronomical," said Eric Brioulette, head of the firefighters union local.

Barrington Countryside is a "paper district," which levies taxes and has a board of trustees but doesn't have its own firefighters. Instead, it pays two-thirds of the $5 million annual operating budget, and the village pays the remaining third.

The village covers only 5 square miles, while another 45 square miles is outside its borders. It takes firefighters and paramedics only 4 to 5 minutes to respond to an emergency call near Barrington, where there is fire station on Northwest Highway, officials said.

The Barrington Countryside district has stations in Barrington Hills to the south and in Lake Barrington to the north. Response times in rural areas of the district run closer to 61/2 minutes and can exceed 20 minutes.

Raising the stakes, the district serves much of Barrington Hills, South Barrington, Lake Barrington, Inverness and unincorporated areas, wealthy areas with large houses and wooden barns and stables that may be harder to save from a fire.

The village now has 39 full-time firefighters — about a third of them in the village and the rest in the district. In 2011, a consultant recommended that to meet national guidelines, the Fire District should hire seven more firefighters. District officials also want to buy a new water tanker and offered to pay for it and the extra firefighter salaries. But village officials refused to approve that plan last year, saying partly that the village would have to pay pension costs for services that it doesn't need.

The village's denial of the tanker and extra firefighters was the last straw, Fire District President Tom Rowan said. In September, his board gave notice that it would terminate the agreement.

District trustees want a private contractor to provide 30 to 33 firefighters. The contractor could offer a retirement investment plan like a 401(k), rather than a pension, which could provide substantial savings, Rowan said.

This month the district received bids from five contractors to provide the firefighters for $2.6 million to $3.9 million.

District resident Mike Beltowski credited the firefighters with saving his home after a fire last year.